ABSTRACT
How have ordinary Italians remembered the Allied bombing and subsequent liberation? They have often done so not only on the basis of their own direct experiences but also through cinematic representations. Chapter Six examines the impact of John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro, the story of the simultaneous destruction and liberation of a small town in the Liri Valley, near Cassino, along the route to Rome. Promoted as a documentary, the film was later revealed to be a reconstruction of the battle scenes, enacted several weeks after the town’s liberation. The chapter draws on accounts by Huston and his crew as well as careful analysis of the film by Italian historians and media specialists who discovered the original unedited footage. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the role San Pietro—the town and the movie—played in forming popular Italian understandings of the war and the Allied bombing campaigns and how those understandings have contributed to a strong pacifist orientation in contemporary Italian public opinion.
